


saying that I love him but I know I'm gonna leave him

by selenedaydreams



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, M/M, Minor Character Death Mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 00:37:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5519030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selenedaydreams/pseuds/selenedaydreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This could be us one day.” Poe whispers half to himself as he finally turns towards Ben, finding a curious expression on his face. “This could be us.” He repeats, this time with more excitement. “You and me. Pilot and copilot. Traveling the universe together.”</p>
<p>Poe has never seen Ben smile at him the way he’s smiling now but Ben’s reaching for his hand and lacing their fingers together so it must be good. “Together.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	saying that I love him but I know I'm gonna leave him

**Author's Note:**

> I played around with the scenes a bit, the last one is a twist on what happened in the movie but I really liked the idea of 'what if Poe and Ben had been childhood friends' because it makes everything ten time more painful.

Poe is playing with his new X-Wing Starfighter model when someone enters the room. He doesn’t look up immediately, just assumes that someone must have come searching for him to scold him for skipping class. Again.

When he finally looks up thought, he finds someone hovering in doorway, half hidden by the door and staring at Poe with curiosity and apprehension.

“Your mother won’t like that you’re skipping class.” Not that Poe has any room to talk, of course, but he does so anyway because it’s true.

“Neither will yours.”

“My mother isn’t the General.”

That seems to do the trick because Ben finally steps away from the door and enters the room, moving closer to him in an almost cautious manner that Poe’s never quite mastered.

“I saw you leave the group.”

They had been on their way to the gardens to study the freshly fallen foliage when Poe had made his getaway. It was for everyone’s benefit though. He’s going to be a pilot when he grows up and pilot don’t need to study leaves they need to learn how to fly.

“So you followed me instead of telling professor?”

Ben shrugs and doesn’t say anything until he sits down right in front of Poe. His eyes never leave the fighter plane in his hand and in that moment Ben seems just a little more like him.

“I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

When Poe grins at him, Ben can’t help from smiling.

-

 They become best friends immediately.

It probably helps that their mothers are also good friends. One day Poe overhears his mother tell General Organa that they must be kindred spirits to have fallen into friendship so quickly. He doesn’t really understand what those words mean or why General Organa smiles so fondly at them but he assumes it must be a good thing, which is why he doesn’t give the words much thought until one late afternoon when Ben is dragging him outside just as it’s getting dark.

“Where are you taking me?”

Ben is holding onto his hand tightly as he pulls him through the shrubbery and even though the only answer he’s been given so far was a quick ‘you’ll see,’ he follows willingly.

They finally stop in the middle of an empty meadow and just as Poe is about to ask again, Ben urges him to look up and that’s all the answer he needs. The sky is filled with stars, beautiful, shinning stars, so many more stars than Poe has ever seen in his entire life and it’s a little too much to handle.

He doesn’t realize Ben is still holding his hand until he moves to lay back on the ground and finds himself tugging Ben down along with him. Ben doesn’t object though, he immediately lays down next to Poe. Their shoulders press together lightly at they look up in unison.

“You said you loved the sky so I thought you would like this.”

Poe doesn’t say anything for a long while but he continues holding onto Ben’s hand and when he finally glances over at him, he’s looking at Ben the same way he had been looking at the stars. For the first time, his mother’s words to General Organa are starting to make sense.

Maybe this is what a kindred spirit is.

**-**

 They shouldn’t be doing this.

They really shouldn’t be doing this but Ben had dragged him along once again with mysterious promises of what is yet to come and Poe still can’t find it in himself to deny him anything.

Of course, as he’s being dragged onto the Millennium Falcon he thinks that maybe he should put an end to this but Ben is pulling him through the corridors now and it’s too late to turn back. Especially since Ben takes the copilot seat without a second thought, leaving the driver’s seat for him.

The driver’s seat. Han Solo’s seat. He’s currently sitting in Han Solo’s seat and Ben is grinning at him from ear to ear.

“Your dad would kill us if he knew we were here.”

“Dad is finally telling mom about the plane he crashed last month so he won’t be looking for us.”

It doesn’t make him feel completely safe but it’s enough to keep him from leaving. After all, his might be his only chance to be inside the Millennium Falcon so he’s going to take his time and enjoy it properly. He touches the controls lightly, carefully, because he might be learning about flying X-Wings but he doesn’t know anything about how the Millennium Falcon works and the last thing they need is for him to accidentally activate it.

“This could be us one day.” Poe whispers half to himself as he finally turns towards Ben, finding a curious expression on his face. “This could be us.” He repeats, this time with more excitement. “You and me. Pilot and copilot. Traveling the universe together.”

Poe has never seen Ben smile at him the way he’s smiling now but Ben’s reaching for his hand and lacing their fingers together so it must be good. “Together.”

-

When his mother dies, he locks himself in his room.

General Organa had been the one to deliver the news and while she had tried to put it as gently as possible it still felt as if he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe and when General Organa had tried to embrace him he had told her to leave in the politest way he knew how but it still felt far too harsh. He’s allowed to be harsh though, isn’t he?

He spends the next couple of days alone, the only human contact he has is when his food is delivered, though he doesn’t speak to the servants who bring the trays in or take them out. The food leaves mostly untouched, though he tries to eat a little to keep anyone from worrying too much about him.

Three days later, there’s a meek knock at his door that Poe tries to ignore.

“Poe, will you please let me in?”

He considers saying no, he considers telling Ben to leave just as he had told his mother to leave but he cracks the door open instead and lets him in before he can change his mind.

Ben looks a little uncomfortable and like he wants to say something but there are arms around him before he can do anything and Poe sags into the embrace despite the cold front he had worked so hard to maintain. It’s hard to stay strong with Ben’s arms around him and when there’s a whispered ‘it’s gonna be okay’ in his ear, he buries his face into Ben’s jacket and finally cries.

Before he realizes what’s happening, Ben is pulling him towards the bed and laying them down before gathering Poe in his arms and presses his lips to his forehead. He’s taller than Poe, has been for a few months now, and it’s so easy for him to pillow his head on Ben’s chest and continue sobbing into his shirt as Ben’s fingers move across his back in soothing motions.

“I will find who did this. They will pay for what they have done. They will pay for hurting you.”

Despite the gentleness of his touches, Ben’s words are ice cold and they make Poe shiver.

-

Between sleepless nights and thunderstorms, it becomes a habit.

Ben sneaks out of his own bedroom and hurries down the hall to crawl into Poe’s bed, reaching out and pulling him against his chest with clumsy dexterity but zero apprehension.

Poe never objects, he just buries his face into Ben’s chest and falls back asleep with the ghost of a smile on his lips.

-

It was accident.

I was an accident, Ben repeats, holding onto his hand tightly as the nurse dabs at the blood on his forehead. The antiseptic stings but Poe just squeezes Ben’s hand tighter and doesn’t say anything.

“I would never hurt you.” Ben swears as the nurse finishes putting the butterfly stiches on the cut.

Poe nods, flashing him a weak smile but a smile nonetheless. He’s still a bit shaken up from being thrown against the wall earlier and hitting his head on the nearby table. In that moment, for the briefest of seconds, he had honestly been afraid of Ben.

His temper tantrums weren’t a mystery, everyone knew they happened but turned a blind eye to them because he’s just a kid, he’ll grow out of them soon enough, but Poe had never thought Ben would ever direct his rage towards him until that morning.

When he looked up though, when he met Ben’s gaze, he saw him instantly crumble and rush towards him frantically muttering ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry’ over and over again as he tried to still the blood flow with his sleeve.

Ben is still holding onto his hand as they leave the nurse’s station and following after Poe like a puppy with its tail between his legs and it’s all just a little too much.

“I know you didn’t mean to.” He assures him because Ben is so desperate for his forgiveness. “I’m not mad at you.”

Ben’s leaning forward then and kissing his cheek before gingerly pressing his lips to the bandages. “I’m still sorry.”

-

Things go downhill from there.

Ben tells him one night that his parents are thinking about sending him to train with Luke Skywalker to help him with the force, to help him from accidentally hurting anyone else. He’s holding tightly onto Poe when he tells him how much he doesn’t want to go, how much he doesn’t want to leave, and all Poe can do is promise him that if he could, he would fly them both far, far away from this.

He can’t though, he can’t fly them away from anything and that’s when he finds Ben huddled in the copilot seat of the Millennium Falcon while everyone at the base is looking for him.

“I don’t wanna go.” His fingers grip Poe’s jacket, tugging him closer. “Please don’t make me leave.”

Poe’s heart breaks in that moment because there’s nothing he can do so he tries to comfort him instead. “I don’t want you to leave.”

He shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over Ben’s shoulders as presses a lingering kiss to his forehead. Ben’s hands grab at his waist to keep him close so Poe just continues pressing kisses to his cheeks and nose and –

“Kiss me.”

Poe is momentarily shocked by the request but Ben is looking at him with so much hope and love that he doesn’t even need time to think because he’s already leaning forward and pressing their lips together.

It’s a sweet first kiss but a bitter last one.

-

They talk through hologram sometimes.

It’s usually short, Ben doesn’t have much time to spare from his training but somehow he always seems to find time for him.

Until he doesn’t.

Until he doesn’t hear from Ben for over a month and General Organa appears to be more worn out with each passing day. He can feel his heart sinking as he finally approaches her.

“General Organa, have you heard from Ben?”

She looks like she wants to cry and _it hurts_. It hurts even worse when she bends down to embrace him because she did the same thing when his parents had died and no, no that can’t be. It can’t be.

“He’s gone, Poe.”

“He’s dead?” The words are chocked off and Poe is gripping tightly onto her dress because maybe if he buries his face in her shoulder well enough he won’t have to face the answer to that question.

“No…far worse.”

A twisted part of Poe wonders if losing Ben to the dark side is worse than Ben dying. At least if he was dead he could mourn him and move on.

He can’t move on from it.

-

He finally sees him years later.

He’s the best pilot for the residence and it’s no secret that Ben had a lot to do with that.

After his descent into the dark side, Poe made a descent of his own, throwing himself into his work and learning to be the best pilot, the best at what he’d always dreamed he’d do.

It’s a passing glance, nothing more, but even though he’s wearing that mask Poe _knows_ it’s him. He turns around before he can see Kylo Ren watching him.

-

He’s still reckless, maybe even more than when he was a kid because when he’s captured by the First Order and made to kneel in front of their leader the first thing that comes out of his mouth is a cocky response.

When they take him aboard their ship, he isn’t surprised, but it doesn’t quite matter so much right now because at least BB-8 is safe and far away from here. He’ll find a way out soon enough. He always does.

They strap him to an upright table, of sorts, and it’s terribly uncomfortable, to say the least. He pulls on the straits, tries to at least free his arms but it’s no use and he’s still locked in place when Kylo Ren enters the room.

“Take off the mask.” It’s equal parts selfish and curiosity because if they’re going to do this Poe wants to see him, Ben, not Kylo Ren, not who he’s been pretending to be.

There’s a pause and something akin to apprehension but when the mask drops to the floor with a loud thud, Poe feels like he had felt all those years ago. He feels like he can’t breathe.

He’s older now, they both are, aged by their experiences and too much pain and yet in Poe’s eyes he still looks the same. The same Ben he once dared to call his.

“What do you think this will accomplish?”

“Come home.”

It’s foolish, God, it’s so foolish but he has to try because _what if_. What if it works? What if they could still be everything they had dreamed of as kids?

He’s met with indifference though and it hurts more than it probably should. “The BB unit. Where is it?”

“Your mother misses you.” He pauses before adding. “ _I_ miss you.”

“If you won’t tell me where the BB unit is, there are way for me to access that information.”

The force. Yes, he’s all too familiar with the force and how it can be used to extra information from unwilling participants. “You promised you’d never hurt me. Ben, you said you would never hurt me.”

And yeah, that seems to do something because he pauses and Poe can see his hands clenching into fists against his side. “That’s not my name.”

“Yes it is.” Poe spits back and he’s angry now. “Ben. Your name is Ben. Ben Solo.”

He’s in front of Poe in an instant, gripping his jaw tightly as he forces Poe to look at him. “My name is Kylo Ren. Ben died a long time ago.”

Poe tries to reach out to him, his wrists rattle loudly against the restraints, and he’s still looking up at Ben with a hopeful expression because that’s all he had left at this point. “I never stopped loving you.”

His thumb moves across Poe’s cheek and for a moment, a fraction of a moment, and it could be mistaken for a comforting gesture but he’s pulling away far too quickly for Poe to be certain.

“I never loved you.”

He isn’t weak. He knows he’s not weak but a battered heart can only take so much. He’s powerless against the Force, he’s always known it, but the selfish part of him tries to remind Ben of everything when he’s searching for BB-8’s location: star gazing late at night, playing inside the Millennium Falcon, the countless nights they spent wrapped up in each other’s arms…their first kiss. Their goddamn first kiss that had been so full of promises and _hope_.

It doesn’t work though. None of it works and Poe slumps almost lifelessly against the restraints once he is finished and has all the information he required.

Poe passes out before he can feel two shaking fingers being pressed against his neck to check his pulse.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr @ mallcolmducasse


End file.
